by Ishmael Reed
“What was that?”
“Well, the first Doc John said that Marie would reign but would be temporarily replaced by a man, but then after he passed she would reign again.
“Marie was a stunning creature. When she walked down South Ramparts Street, the carriages of gentlemen would halt and their masters would gaze at her. She knew the art of beauty because she ran three beauty parlors. She was rising in the New Orleans world of charms and was becoming somewhat of a poet. One Sunday she challenged Saloppé, and it wasn’t long before Marie replaced her. Saloppé was never the same after that and walked through the streets mad—rummaging garbage cans, subject of children’s ridicule.
“She gave a muted version of the old woman’s work. She went commercial with it. You see, the Americans didn’t want their women bowing down half-naked before those African loas; you know how they look and act. So when Marie took over the Business, Americans would come to Bayou Saint John to slum because they could stomach her version. Marie was yellow, and the American men loved yellow women. A yellow woman brought more money than a black, brown, or even a yellow man. To make it even more palatable, Marie replaced the African loas altogether and substituted Catholic saints. For example, Legba became Saint Peter, and you might be interested to know that LaBas is a creole version of Legba. Legba, Spirit of Communications; ‘Good for Business.’”
“Yes, I know. Quite a coincidence. In Filipino it means ‘to chase out, as in evil spirits, to make it go away.’ LaBas is everywhere.”
“That Marie was quite a show woman. She’d have her dancers leaping about.”
LaBas glances at his watch. “Look, I have to return to the Works for a little midnite duty. Gather more leads. I fail to see what this story has to do with Ed’s murder.”
“I’ll explain,” she continued, as LaBas lit her cigarette. “Once in a while Marie would throw a real authentic rite for the colored people so they wouldn’t dismiss her as Queen of the Business. She’d put on a rousing affair for them which she would call playing at the Apollo. Well, about the time Doc John came to town, she was at the height of her power and prestige. New Orleans will never forget Doc John, or to be exact, Doc John II.
“Doc John, as he called himself, didn’t need the Madison Avenue-styled show-biz tricks to get his Gumbo across because he had gone even beyond Marie, whom Business people all over the world acknowledged as a distiller, successfully fusing the Business with Catholicism. She was real tight with a priest named Pierre Antoine, and before she died a Catholic she cooperated with the Church to drive the Business underground.
“She was against the dark-skinned people and thought that with the end of slavery they wouldn’t know their place—many of her clients were wealthy Confederates. This attitude was in marked contrast to that of one of her protégés, Mammy Pleasant, who hid the slaves and was responsible for many gaining their freedom through the underground railroad. In fact, Marie smuggled Mammy Pleasant out of New Orleans to San Francisco, where Mammy Pleasant gained quite a name for herself. No negro man has ruled a city as much as Mammy Pleasant ruled San Francisco. She helped finance John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry.”
“The Business has room for all kinds—right, left, etc.”
“You know it. Well, Doc John was getting a lot of clients, and this got Marie upset. She got her Mafia connections to harass Doc John. There were lots of Italians in N.O. at that time who struck a common bond with the negroes because they were persecuted too. Eleven were lynched on March 14, 1891, in New Orleans, and Italy almost went to war with the United States over the incident.
“Doc John was living in a house full of women—white black yellow brown and red—and the house was full of babies. Marie then tried to get some dope on him. You know, she just about ruled New Orleans with her network of domestic help. She had a domestic spy network, and they would give her all of the goods on the rich and powerful people in town, their employers.
“The powerful people of the town would come to Marie and be amazed at how much she knew about the secrets of their homes. Powerful women flocked to her ceremonies; some danced in the nude, and white gentlemen would go to these ceremonies to engage yellow women. Marie took the ceremonies off the streets and indoors. Had an old club called Maison Blanche—the beginning of the speakeasies. She had all of this, and still she was afraid of Doc John’s competition. So she decided to send him a Bill.”
“A bill?” LaBas asked.
“Yes, a Bill, you know.”
“O, that kind of Bill.”
“See, her lies didn’t hurt Doc John because though people would viper-mouth the man, they knew that he was essentially clean. So every time she had her cronies put a technical or hidden clause on Doc John he would interpret them in ways they couldn’t understand, and Marie became so frustrated that she sent Doc John a past due. Well, that did it. Doc John went to her apartment with the Bill and flung it down on Marie’s table. He said, ‘You didn’t think that this would frighten me, did you?’ Marie sat there, her heart palpitating and her lashes fluttering. Doc John was a big old negro man with coal-black skin and Nigerian scarification on his face. He was always dressed like a prince. Marie didn’t know whether to love the man or mutilate him. You know how passion works.”
“I sure do,” LaBas said. “That I do.”
“After news of this episode got around, people began calling Marie’s stuff Louisiana Red, you know how people talk.”
“Louisiana Red, yes. We got rid of it at the Ted Cunningham Institute back east, but it still runs rampant out here. Louisiana Red: toad’s eyes, putting snakes in people, excrement, hostility, evilness, attitude, negroes stabbing negroes—Crabs in a Barrel.”
“Yes, if Louisiana Red is anything, it’s Crabs in the Barrel. Each crab trying to keep the other one from reaching the top. Who knows? The crab might get outside and find that the barrel was made of sand all along and that their entrapment was an illusion, but they won’t give each other that opportunity to get over the rim to find out.
“Louisiana Red was a misuse of the Business. It gets hot quick and starts acting sullen—high blood pressure is its official disease. Marie decided that she was going to finish off Doc John. That’s when he took her daughter.”
“What?”
“Marie Philome; looked just like Marie. People couldn’t tell them apart. One day Marie saw one of her clients leave her house when she knew that the woman had an appointment with her and she wasn’t late. She found out that Marie Philome had done it.”
“Done what?”
“Impersonated her mother and sold the woman some Business.
“When Doc John took her child, Marie put out a contract on him. She was mad. Louisiana Red mad. Hot. You know how all those songs come out of Louisiana—those homicide songs, ‘Frankie and Johnnie,’ ‘Betty and Dupree,’ ‘Stagalee.’
“Wasn’t long after that Doctor John showed up dead. They say he got her daughter pregnant and that infuriated Marie. He was too dark-skinned for her daughter. She had some fair-skinned children, so fair-skinned that one of them passed for white and wouldn’t recognize Marie as her mother because she was ashamed of her. One of her sons went to Paris and tried to become a painter, giving up America altogether. There were lots of these fair musicians and artists and writers who went to Paris and studied; the Renaissance had happened before. But anyway, some tried to say it was an Orpho killing.”
“Orpho killing?”
“Orpho was killed by the women followers of Dionysius; it was a revenge killing. They tore him to pieces. He disliked women and wouldn’t permit them to come within twenty feet of his temples.
“Likewise with Doc John. They tried to blame his killing on his female followers, but it was Marie who was arrested and put in jail. She had the strongest motive in town. Well, Marie got her powerful connections to spring her, and nothing was ever made of it after that. Marie had too much power, and that was the end of the first attempt by a brother to run the ‘Business’ in America; it was
mama before and it’s been mama ever since. Marie was so big in N.O. that the mayor awarded her a plaque for Woman of the Year.
“They gave Doc John one of the biggest funerals they ever had in New Orleans. Buried him in that blazing red horseman’s jacket he loved to wear, and the yellow top hat was laid on the casket. He loved to ride horses, and when he rode this pretty auburn-colored horse down South Ramparts Street, all the ladies sighed. You should have seen those women, hi-yellow gals, sassy black, melancholy brown, hi-society women giving him those glances. Giving him the eye. Marie Philome took it real hard; almost threw herself into the grave after him. People in the crowd testified to how he had helped them. Well, there was a lot of butchering of Doc John’s followers after that; Marie’s police looked the other way. Finally the band fled to Algiers, across the river from New Orleans. That’s where Ed Yellings contacted them. They knew Doc John’s recipes of Slave Medicine—medicine handed down through the generations and enriched by the fact that all of the African tribes merged their knowledge in the New World. You know, the slaves brought their mythology and everything here, and it underwent modifications.
“The slave name ‘Old Sam,’ for instance, referred to the devil who was usually associated with gravedigging in slave lore—this was abbreviated from Baron Samedi, Lord of the cemetery; and Aunt Jemima, far from being a stereotype, is an archetype, Yemoja—Queen of the Witches, Queen Bee, so fat with honey she moves ponderously. Breasts as big as inner tubes. Same way with the Business. African ‘Doctoring’ was preserved by special doctors Doc John studied under. They had many healing powers.
“Ed Yellings spent three months down there, taping the followers of Doc John. Marie’s Business by that time was in the hands of people who didn’t have her gifts; had degenerated into a mail-order front for selling dope, jukeboxes. They had abandoned Marie’s old business and were collaborating with criminal elements, and so these people got wind of Ed’s visit to New Orleans and they sent three spies to Berkeley to find out what he was up to. One got into Ed’s inner circle some kind of way. They got to Minnie.”
“Minnie?”
“Minnie can’t help herself. They tried to get Sister and Wolf too, but the children took after their dad. They were psychically self-reliant and resistant to Louisiana Red. They had dismissed Street as a dummy until they found they could use him too.
“Ed used a formula Doc John was working on before his death, and based upon that formula Ed found a cure for cancer. Ed wasn’t that original, but he certainly could put it together. They found out from one of their spies who had access to his papers that his next project was to find a cure for heroin addiction by isolating the spirit of the poppy seed.”
“That’s very interesting. So when Ed set out to find a cure for heroin addiction they got rid of him.”
“Right. If Ed could successfully convince his clients that he was legitimate and the other mail-order house was merely a front, then all of their customers would go to Ed. He would have pulled the wraps off of their junk; the indictments would fly hot and fast.
“Ed was going even beyond the Gumbo pill and into aural healing. He was experimenting with ways of healing people by manipulating their psychic fields. He wanted to put all of the accouterments of the Business into museums under the skillful hands of Businesswomen like Betye Saar. He wanted to close down the operation altogether so that there wouldn’t even be any trace of the Business, that way baffling the industrial spies. He knew that they were about to get some of their contacts in Washington to investigate his Gumbo, having found out that there was more than okra rice and chicken to his plant. His wife, Ruby, who had gone back east to enter politics, was rising fast in the Food and Drug Administration and was eager to cause a scandal. She wanted to get the Food and Drug Administration to investigate Gumbo Works for signs of violations of the law, and so Ed was working rapidly to end Solid Gumbo Works. That’s when they had their spies kill him.”
“Who are the spies?”
“I’m not at liberty to give you their names; besides, knowing you, you wouldn’t be satisfied unless you could solve the case yourself. You rascal, I see you going around with those women half your age. Cutting up.”
“That’s my Business. Anyway, thanks for the leads.”
“There’s more. This Minnie, the one that the New Orleans Louisiana Red Circle got to—leave her alone.”
“She’s become a pest, she needs to be scorched a bit, I’m thinking about touching her. She’s never been touched. That’s what’s wrong with the child.”
“You don’t have to. She’s going to meet up with someone who’s nursing an old grudge against her. A stranger in the sky. You don’t have to do anything but solve the case; leave Minnie to the Chairman of the Board.”
“If you say so.” He paused. “You know, you have to hand it to Marie Laveau.”
“What’s that, LaBas?”
“Well, she had fifteen children, seven of whom died of yellow fever, and so she had to feed all those kids with no man, her husband Jacques having disappeared.”
“I’ll bet I know what happened to him.”
“O, that’s only gossip. She had to hustle, and no matter how crude she was I shall maintain a place for her on my staff. I plan to feed her a bonus from time to time, too. She has brought me some good luck, but instead of calling her the founder, Doctor John shall be the founder of the American Business and she will be second vice-president in charge of wit and hustle.”
“Why not name her first vice-president?”
“I’m keeping that open; you never know what new information we may uncover. Well, I have to get back to the case. I’m glad that Minnie won’t be in the way any more. Are you sure you have the right information about her?”
“LaBas, you know how ultrasonic I am. Have I ever given you a bad lead?”
“No.”
“Well, I have to get back to the halls.”
“LaBas called the waitress and asked for the check. He excused himself and went to the men’s room to wash his hands. When he returned, she had gone; spirited away. She had a habit of disappearing like that. She left a note on the table: “LaBas, you don’t owe me anything for this. Just remember me.” LaBas paid the check and left the restaurant.
He didn’t see T Feeler, who was hiding in a booth next to them. As soon as he saw them come into Harry’s, where he was having a drink, he slid into the booth next to them to eavesdrop.
He would rush to Minnie to tell her everything he had heard.
CHAPTER 34
T Feeler, tensed up and high strung, his “good hair” waving under his beret, fled Harry’s and ran to his bicycle parked in the parking lot. He began pedaling up University Avenue, turned left at Oxford, right at Hearst, and left at Euclid. He traveled up Euclid until he came to Keith, where he turned right to the Yellings’ home. He jumped off the bicycle, ran up the path and through the door out of breath.
“What’s wrong with you, you ol sissified nigger, come in here mess up my flo?” Nanny stood with a mop in her hand, a hand on her hip; she was doing the hall.
“I must see Minnie, quick.”
Minnie, hearing T Feeler’s voice, rushed out from the rear apartment behind whose doors much commotion was going on.
“It’s O.K., Nanny,” Minnie said.
“Well, he should knock next time. He trying so hard to be cute he don’t even think about knocking. He ain’t as cute as he think he is.” Pouting and flashing T a murderous grin, Nanny went upstairs.
“Minnie, they’re after you.”
“Who’s after me, T?” she said, showing him to one of the living room-sofas.
“LaBas and some woman. They were having a drink at Harry’s. They didn’t know I was in the next booth. Anyway, they were talking about you. She told him that a stranger in the sky and out of your past would take care of you, and that this stranger would want to even an old score in which you acted hoggish. I didn’t get much of the conversation, but it seemed they were discussi
ng your father.”
“You came all the way up here to tell me this?”
“But, Minnie …”
“I’m not worried about LaBas any more. Maxwell Kasavubu obtained a lawyer for me. Since Wolf died, they believe they have a good case for giving me the plant. Solid Gumbo Works will be mine, and I’ll make it go public. I’ll put those Workers out, and LaBas will be thrown out too. He’s probably engaged in some last-ditch negotiations to keep me from getting the place.”
“But, Minnie, he has some powers. They say that LaBas and his Workers are nothing to fool with.”
“Quacks. They’re quacks. We found out what they were making down there. Quack industry. Mumbo Jumbo. Now if you’ll excuse me, T, I have to go back and help on the pamphlets we are putting out for the rally on behalf of Kingfish and Andy Brown—the brothers were unjustly busted in the home of one of LaBas’ Workers. The corrupt bushwa is some kind of double agent because he called the police on his own brothers.”
“Do you need a hand, Minnie?” T volunteered.
“Sure, T, why don’t you take care of Big Sally’s thirteen children? Then the sister upstairs who’re minding them can come help us with the work.”
“Yes, Minnie. Anything you say. You’re the boss.” T Feeler walked behind Minnie like a frail sad puppy.
CHAPTER 35
Morning. LaBas had reached an impasse in the case. Whenever this occurred, he would take up another project. Usually, when he took his attention off of a case, he’d divert it to something quite different. He had decided to give his temporary living quarters a thorough housecleaning in the old-fashioned way. Marie Laveau had written a book in which she talked about a Business housecleaning. This housecleaning not only got into the nooks and crannies of the living space but the spiritual space as well. He was looking up names under “Domestics” in the yellow pages. Domestic!! LaBas called Nanny. He wanted to ask her some questions.